Life.Death.OK.

Okay, this will be brief.

Yesterday I read a post on Facebook about a woman who did something quite remarkable.

She took to heart a popular quote:

Supposedly Gandhi said that.

Gandhi was from a nation that worships cows.

Anyway, she saw somewhere that the local humane society was going to euthanize a pit bull and her pup the next day, so she sprang into action.

By the time she got to the shelter, the pup had already been adopted. The woman’s description of the momma dog would, however, break your heart. It was malnourished and had obviously been abused, perhaps used in dog fights. It was covered with wounds and sores, and it cowered in fear.

But the woman stood by her convictions.

She also discovered the pit bull had a companion in the shelter, so she decided to adopt them both.

Just heart-warming…

Thing is, both dogs tested positive for heart worms. She was made aware of this before she adopted them.

Easy to prevent. Very expensive and difficult to cure.

So now she has launched a “GoFundMe” account to raise $3,500 to care for these two dogs that would have otherwise been euthanized the next day.

Captain's Note: If you have been following "Banana Winds" very long, you know how the Captain feels about "GoFundMe". 

This story has left the Captain scratching his head.

First, one shouldn’t adopt an animal you can’t afford.

Second, sometimes the more compassionate course of action is to allow for a humane death.

Don’t get me wrong. The Captain loves animals. We have had dogs. We have cats. And fish.

I would get a parrot, but to cage such a magnificent animal is just plain cruel.

And I don't want bird shit all over my house!

Nonetheless, I suspect Gandhi (or whoever said it) is right. You CAN judge a society by how they treat animals.

In America, we don’t let our people die gracefully anymore either. 

We are so averse to afraid of Death that we spend all of our resources in the waning days of our lives just to stay alive… one more year... one more month... one more day... even when the quality of that life sucks!

Resuscitation is an immediate response to death at any age. Life support is required unless you have signed papers in hand forbidding the doctors to take that action. Then there are surgeries… chemotherapies… radiation treatments… pills...

“Here. Take this pill. It may make you feel better, but it also might cause birth defects or life-threatening withdrawal symptoms in a newborn. It may be habit-forming. Misuse of habit-forming medicine can cause addiction, overdose, or death.

“Do not drink alcohol while taking this medication. It can increase the effects of alcohol. It may be habit-forming and should be used only by the person for whom it was prescribed. Keep the medication in a secure place where others cannot get to it.

You should not take this medicine if you have:

• narrow-angle glaucoma;
• if you are also taking other medications; or
• if you are allergic to it or similar medications.

“To make sure this medication is safe for you, tell your doctor if you have:

• seizures or epilepsy;
• kidney or liver disease (especially alcoholic liver disease);
• asthma or other breathing disorder;
• open-angle glaucoma;
• a history of depression or suicidal thoughts or behavior;
• a history of drug or alcohol addiction; or
• if you also use a narcotic (opioid) medication.

“Do not use this medication if you are pregnant. It can cause birth defects. Your baby could also become dependent on the drug. This can cause life-threatening withdrawal symptoms in the baby after it is born. Babies born dependent on habit-forming medicine may need medical treatment for several weeks. Tell your doctor if you are pregnant or plan to become pregnant. Use effective birth control to prevent pregnancy while you are taking this medication.

“It can pass into breast milk and may harm a nursing baby. You should not breast-feed while you are using this medication.

“The effects of this medication may last longer in older adults. Accidental falls are common in elderly patients who take it. Use caution to avoid falling or accidental injury while you are taking this medication.”

Captain’s Note: I’m not sure but I may have just violated a copyright law there. Sorry.

So rather than accepting that we are going to die one day – and we all are, one day – we do all this expensive stuff and take all these expensive medications that "could" cure us… if it doesn’t kill us first!

“Momma lived to be 99!” But she didn’t know who she was for the last 20 years.

“Daddy lived to be 80!” Because of the ventilator that breathed for him the last three years.

And now we're financially ruined as well...

No thank you!

Can’t we learn to accept that death is a part of life? That we are all eventually going to die? That one should be allowed as much dignity in dying as granted while living?

Your Captain doesn’t plan to spend his “Golden Years” tethered to life support or dependent on drugs.

And one shouldn’t force that upon another either – human or animal.

Parsonage Life

Nearly two years ago, the Captain and First Mate were informed that we would be moving.

It was unexpected, to say the least. While the job was stressful – what church job isn’t? – we didn’t see this coming.

To compound that matter, since we weren’t expecting to move, we had already scheduled a family vacation during what is traditionally known as “Moving Week”.

Captain’s Note: “Moving Day” is a church thing. Every pastor who is moving to a new assignment moves on the same day. That way there is, theoretically, no loss of pastoral care when one pastor leaves and the new one arrives. But that also means the out-going family must be out by noon so the in-coming family can move in.

We’ve done this several times before, and it never gets any easier. The longer you live, the more “Stuff” you acquire, which means there’s an ever-increasing amount of “Stuff” to pack and move.

This time we were in a pickle. We needed to move out of our parsonage (church-provided housing for clergy) before we left for vacation, which meant we needed access to the parsonage we were moving to as well. We thought that would be easy to arrange since the house was being rented and the renters were leaving about the same time.

But a kink in the plan arose because the church leaders wanted to welcome us properly by totally re-painting and re-carpeting the house. Under normal circumstances that would have been greatly appreciated, but these were unusual times. Despite my pleas, the church’s representative told us he didn’t think there was any way they could get all that done before we needed to move in.

I suggested they just clean the carpets and do a deep-clean of the rest of the house (i.e kitchen and bathrooms), and we would paint and work on the floors after we moved in. He didn’t like that idea. In fact, he liked better the idea that we wouldn’t be moving in until after our vacation, which would give them an additional week to do the work they wanted to do.

In desperation, I sent him “before & after” photos of our handiwork at another house we had lived in.

That was enough to convince him we would do a good job.

The deal, as it has always been with us, is that we would carefully maintain the church-owned parsonage. We have heard nightmares from others – of parsonages literally falling down, of child- or pet-inflicted damage, and just general lack of care. And in most of those situations, it was a matter of neither the church nor the pastor wanting to take responsibility for the house.

Church: “You’re living there; you fix it.”

Pastor: “It’s your house; you fix it.”

At one house, this battle apparently went so far as the changing of lightbulbs. When we moved in, there were just enough working lightbulbs to find your way through the house.

Our deal has been that if there is something that needs to be done, we will do the work and they will pay for the materials. If there is something we want done (our preference), we will pay for the materials. It has worked well in the past. We have painted, replaced flooring, rewired, plumbed, landscaped… whatever was needed.

So once the renters left, I spent several late nights painting – when I should have been packing – trying to get ahead of the move. But the time came and we had to move our “Stuff”…

And then we left for our much-needed vacation.

By the way, we spent days personally cleaning the house we left. The kitchen and bathrooms were spotless. I filled nail holes from where we had hung pictures. (I knew they were going to re-paint.) We even “polished the lightbulbs”, as a colleague once suggested! The next family could move right in.

As usual, our current home has been a constant work-in-progress. The First Mate and I have re-painted every room except two. And last month we began on the floors – replacing carpet in the Master Bedroom with engineered wood flooring – bamboo, a renewable resource.

And it’s gorgeous!

This weekend we started on the Family Room. More carpet removed, more engineered wood flooring installed. Of course, this involves re-packing the smaller items and moving around a room full of heavy furniture.

The flooring (400 square feet of it!) is going down easily. And for the first two days, we were moving along surprisingly well. But yesterday we hit a snag. At some point in time, water had leaked in through the sliding glass door and the particle board sub-floor was swollen and rotted; mold had developed in places under the sub-floor. So before we could continue, about 30 square feet of sub-floor had to come up.

This set me back a day, but it created an opportunity as well. In replacing the sub-floor in front of the sliding glass door, I have installed a water-proof hardi-board which will eventually support ceramic tile to create a space for wet or muddy shoes coming in from outside.

So yesterday I wrangled a sheet of hardi-board and two sheets of chip-board home from the hardware store and spent the rest of the day installing them.

Do you have any idea how much a 4 X 8 sheet of chip-board weighs?

Nearly 60 lbs., that’s how much!

Unfortunately, the Captain and First Mate both have “real jobs”, so the completion of the floor project will have to wait until the weekend.

Then comes the fun part!

The layout of the house does not really match our lifestyles. As you might guess, we are not a “Formal Living Room” and “Formal Dining Room” couple. 

Although the house is set up for that, it has been wasted space. So after we finish the floor in the family room, we’re going to move our Family Room activities into the Formal Dining Room, freeing up the center of the house for bonus space.

Think arts & crafts, family gatherings, etc.

There are several more “projects” awaiting us in this house – two bathrooms with odd layers of flooring stacked one atop the other; a kitchen that reflects its mid-70s origin; two more bedrooms; and the Living Room/Dining Room area.

And then there is my eternal dream for an expanded patio.

If all goes well, we hope to live here long enough to get it all done.

And enjoy it!

From my keyboard to God’s ears!